Poly(ethylene terephthalate) fabrics are treated with sodium hydroxide using ethylene glycol or glycerin as the solvent. Compared with conventional aqueous alkaline hydrolysis, the degradation rate in ethylene glycol increases tenfold. The kinetics of the alkaline-ethylene glycol treatment show that the weight loss is linear with respect to time. The moisture regain rate and tensile properties of the treated fabrics are measured; other tests include scanning electron microscopy and dyeing properties. The results show that the properties of the treated fabrics do not depend significantly on the solvent; therefore, using ethylene glycol can greatly shorten the treatment time to achieve results similar to those with the conventional aqueous system.
Amphiphilic conetwork-structured copolymers containing different lengths of ethylene oxide (EO) chains as ionophilic units and methyl methacrylate (MMA) chains as ionophobic units were prepared by free radical copolymerization and characterized by FTIR and thermal analysis. Polymer gel electrolytes based on the copolymers complexed with liquid lithium electrolytes (dimethyl carbonate (DMC) : diethyl carbonate (DEC) : ethylene carbonate (EC) ¼ 1 : 1 : 1 (W/W/W), LiPF 6 1.0M) were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry and impedance spectroscopy. A maximum ion conductivity of 4.27 Â 10 À4 S/cm at 25 o C was found for the polymer electrolyte based on (PEG2000-b-GMA)-co-MMA with long EO groups. Moreover, the effect of temperature on conductivity of the amphiphilic polymer electrolytes obeys the Arrhenius equation. The good room temperature conductivity of the polymer electrolytes is proposed to relate to the enhancement in the amorphous domain of the copolymers due to their amphiphilic conetwork structure.
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